Instagram Says it’s Making the Teen Feed Basically PG-13

With input from NBC News, the New York Times, and Meta.

After months of heat over teen safety, Instagram is promising a big reset: treat the teen experience more like a PG-13 movie. That’s the new north star, the company says — fewer sexualized posts, tighter limits on adult themes, and a lot more “nope” in search and recommendations.

Here’s what’s changing in plain English. Instagram will start “age-gating” accounts that regularly share grown-up stuff — think alcohol promos or links to porn sites — so under-18 users can’t follow, message, or even see them. That could apply to influencers and celebrities too, not just anonymous meme pages. It won’t be a one-strike rule, but repeat adult content means teens get walled off.

Search is getting stricter as well. The app will block a wider set of mature terms and variations, not just the old short list. Inside the feed and Explore, Instagram says it will hide or stop recommending posts with strong language, certain risky stunts, sexually suggestive posing, or marijuana paraphernalia. The PG-13 idea even extends to the app’s chatty AI characters, which will be set to avoid answers that wouldn’t fly in a PG-13 script.

All of this applies to “Teen Accounts,” which Instagram routes anyone under 18 into by default — either because they entered a real birth date or because Instagram’s age-detection tools think they’re a minor. The company admits some teens lie about their age; it says it tries to catch them but won’t say how often it succeeds. The new rules will apply consistently across the teen range, so a 17-year-old gets the same protections as a 13-year-old until they age out.

Parents will also get a tougher override. A new “Limited Content” setting goes beyond PG-13 — filtering more posts and disabling comments for teens — with plans to clamp down further on teen AI chats next year. Instagram says it surveyed thousands of parents to calibrate the lines and will keep running in-app reviews so parents can flag content they think shouldn’t surface for teens.

The company is racing to repair a battered reputation. Lawmakers and parents have slammed Instagram and other platforms for not doing enough to protect kids, and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg apologized at a Senate hearing last year to families who say the apps harmed their children. Recent reporting and whistleblower testimonies — on everything from research into teen safety to inappropriate AI chats — kept the pressure on. At the same time, Meta has fought state laws that would force age verification, arguing they’re unworkable and won injunctions in Florida and Georgia.

Instagram’s PG-13 remodel starts rolling out to teen accounts in the US, UK, Australia and Canada now, with global expansion by year’s end. The company knows it won’t catch everything — just like a PG-13 film can still have a swear word or two — but it’s betting that clearer guardrails, less adult content in the algorithm, and a stronger parent hand will make teen Instagram feel a lot less R-rated.